


Summer Into Dust

by gossy16



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:29:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gossy16/pseuds/gossy16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zombie apocalypse! This is roughly a couple years old, so let's say it goes AU circa mid-S5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Into Dust

As far as safe buildings go - and this is pretty much the only scenario wherein Booth will admit it, the Jeffersonian's lab beats the Hoover without a doubt. He picks up Parker, Rebecca and Drew in the afternoon of Day 3 and lets them set camp while he loads up on respiratory masks and guns and ammo.

"Where have you been?" Brennan is on him the minute he gets back to the lab.

Hodgins left hours earlier having just found out the virus was designed by a government-funded secret agency. He hasn't been back. It's hard for Brennan to comfort Angela and tell her that her husband's most likely safe when she herself is distraught over her... her... Booth.

An hour before dusk, Hodgins finally comes back with Sweets, Daisy, about 30 gallons of bottled water, and a huge stack of board games.

Fisher's been with them since Day 2. By the end of Day 4, Vincent Nigel-Murray and Clark have both joined them. No one's heard from Arastoo. When Wendell shows up with his mom at the end of Day 8, it's such a relief to everybody, they have a makeshift party. Any excuse to hold on to a semblance of normalcy, or what passed as such in their previous lives.

As scientists, it's their inclination to analyze empirical clues and uncover logical answers. They know nothing about this that will help them reach a solution to it, but they'll try and they'll talk at each other and they'll debate a million hypotheses to death, literally, if Angela and Booth didn't beg them to stop.

They break out Twister for the first time that night (Day 11). It's a big hit with Goodman's girls and Parker. Children's laughter is the best fucking sound in the world right now, to all of them, whether or not they consciously know it.

As a rule, they don't go out unless absolutely necessary. Some of them haven't seen the day sky for weeks, then most of them, and eventually all of them. For a couple of hours around dawn, two to four of them go up to the roof to survey the immediate surroundings for any animal activity. Clark saw a reporter get bit once, somewhere around Day 7. The rest of the news crew shot the beast - Fisher keeps calling them zombies (thinks he's funny, too) - and he hasn't been out there since.

Television reports stop completely on Day 13. Online news providers cease to update within hours of that, some time early on Day 14. Then all that's left are tweets and blog entries that have about as much credibility now as they did _before this was reality_.

In the daytime, Goodman, Rebecca and Brennan school the kids to keep up some semblance of a routine. To keep themselves from going completely insane. Meanwhile, Booth and Wendell train the guys in weapons handling theory, which would be the stupidest goddamn concept Booth's ever heard of under any other set of circumstances.

Their food, water, and toiletries are rapidly dwindling, and soon they'll have to venture out to replenish their supplies.

*

 

On the morning of Day 16, Cam and Mrs. Bray notice a sizeable stain in the distant northern sky. Last news they got from the TV, Switzerland and Bengladesh were to launch what the international community called "nuclear micro-attacks" on American cities "as a last resort to contain the phenomena." Healthy citizens were advised to evacuate Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, New York City. Among others. Make sure to tune in to our 9 o'clock special report. And that's the last news they got.

So the men go out in pairs, armed up to their teeth. They bring back the bare necessities in large quantities, and a little bit of hope with each one of them who makes it back by the agreed-upon 1730. Everything gets tested for contamination before it gets dispatched and consumed. Bolstered by the success of this first venture, they do it again and again and again, as needed.

It's Day 55 when Fisher doesn't make it back to the lab. Clark gets there precisely at 1749 and at that point, every one's just glad to see him alive, albeit with blood on his hands and on his shirt and on his soul. He doesn't have to say what happened. Just as well; he doesn't say much at all these days.

Day 56 is when Brennan eventually breaks down. She tells Hodgins she knows nothing about a world where external factors will cause a species to degenerate and turn on itself. She tells Angela it's lack of caffeine, lack of sleep, and that this overwhelming fear is not a feeling she welcomes, nor knows how to deal with. She tells Booth to please not press the issue, to please leave her alone. He says never, he says "that's not gonna happen, Bones." And so they sit on the couch in her office that night, too tired to talk, until she falls asleep, her head on his shoulder.

In the morning, she tells Michelle in great detail everything she needs to know to teach the children. In the afternoon, she picks out the guns most suitable to her size and shooting ability and she trains with the guys. Lately for them, training has become largely synonymous with brainstorming strategy. They do what they can. When this whole thing started, it seemed a reasonable option simply to wait it out. But it's becoming clearer each day: if they ever want to live out of this space again, literal or otherwise, they need to fight back.

It's a war, all right.

Day 62 and the lights are starting to flicker at increasingly smaller intervals. 

*

 

Day 65 sees their first offensive mission. Degenerates encountered: 27. Degenerates killed: 8. They sneak up on you slow and silent - most of the time you're alerted by the putrid smell they walk around in - but they run like hell at the sound of gunfire.

Back at the lab, the team is back to theorizing and fact-tallying. They map out areas of town according to how safe they know them to be. It's a silent celebration each time everybody comes home unscathed. Brennan doesn't ridicule them for praying.

By Day 71, they've seen hundreds and killed 39. They're getting better at it. They can't afford too many missed shots or second thoughts. They were all people once. Day 73 sees their 50th kill. They'll drink to that, whatever the insignificance of those figures.

On Day 80, a group of them takes the kids to a small park they think they secured over the last week, after one of Goodman's girls asked if they'd ever see the sun again. It's a cold day and the children don't protest wearing padded earmuffs on top of the masks that already cover up most of their faces. Booth, Wendell, Clark and Drew keep circling the block the whole time, shooting at the sky once every few minutes. The children keep on playing and laughing and pretending they can't hear a thing. They don't question where all the other kids are. They just keep on running around laughing again. It is both the most terrified and the most exhilirated Booth has felt in a while, maybe in his whole life.

That night, they make pizza from scratch, with supplies looted from the Royal Diner and Mrs. Bray's traditional recipe. It's a little undercooked, but it is the best thing they've eaten in months. For an hour or so, they can delude themselves into believing they still have a life out there that they can go back to after all of this is over. It's something to cling to.

They've killed hundreds by now, ammo runs are becoming more and more frequent. (Maybe thousands. They've decided to stop keeping count. They were all people, once.)

Day 89 is when the lights go out and never come back on. The lab looks dramatically different in the candlelight, kind of romantic, kind of unreal. These days you appreciate beauty wherever you can find it. Brennan finds Booth on the platform bridge, gazing down at their refuge with an inscrutable look in his eyes.

"Hey," she says, gently bumping his shoulder with her own. He attempts a smile as he turns to look at her. She looks like hell, but God, she's so beautiful. "The back-up generator will keep the security system going for about a week," she says.

"We've gotta get out of here."

They leave the lab on Day 100 and start walking South. The sky is a menacing shade of orange. They don't know how many days it's been since the last rainfall. Looks like a lot. The plan is to find a boat somewhere. There has to be a boat somewhere. Maybe one of them read something on a blog about ships from Portugal and South Africa crossing oceans to rescue survivors on the Eastern seaboard. Maybe it was real. Maybe.

It's a long way to walk. They set up camp on the hard shoulder in case a truck or other vehicle might still be running (not that any of them believe in those odds, not even Vincent) and they take turns to sleep, watch the fire, watch their backs. They come across several degens in the 4 days it takes them to reach Norfolk, but no activity on that port.

So they keep walking, and Booth will carry his son until his arms fall off, because this road and this time, he knows, are the most precious thing he has.

*

 

It'll take them 6 more days to reach Wilmington, NC. It's good to keep moving, but man alive, walking sucks. It's all they do, aside from the occasional side-search for survival supplies, which they also do on foot. They walk on and on until all of their feet bleed, and they agree to take an extra day's rest here and there, where they can find decent shelter without going out of their way.

There is a group in Wilmington, almost two-hundred strong, left of all the survivors who were quick enough to reach the seaport and secure it. They're expecting a ship from Safi, Morocco in 53 more days (give or take a few). The waters are inclement this far up North this time of year. That's 53 days they could be walking, finding sooner-departing ships.

Ships. They're really coming. At some point one of the guys thinks to brag about coming up with this lead. "King of the lab," Hodgins whispers. And finally they laugh, and they laugh, and they laugh until they cry. They are so tired. So tired.

It's nice to see people, children, alive and active and full of hope still. The worn-down carpet in these terminals feels so lush to sleep on, to tread. But they stock up on bullets and canned goods and some excellent fucking hiking boots, because stopping right here and now would feel too much like giving up.

Maybe it's because they're somewhat well-rested for the first time in forever, or maybe it's that brand new sense like they're maybe getting somewhere, but the walk to Charleston has a sort of quiet intangible quality not entirely unlike peace of mind. The road is scenic and breezy and, in the absence of engines or gunfire, the rumor of the rolling waves whispers a promise of something worth this fight.

There's a sunset in Garden City, South Carolina, after a long day of walking. It takes Booth's breath away, changes his life. _If they were hundreds in Wilmington, they'll be hundreds more in Jacksonville._ Booth watches the golden light reflect in his son's tousled hair and scatter, wistful. They won't all fit on the same boat.

They walk into Charleston a couple of days before Thanksgiving. It takes them a couple of hours to find the seaport and when they walk into the main terminal, they almost can't believe their senses. People are dancing. To ballroom music, playing over the still-working PA system.

They missed the last boat just by a week, and dozens of stranded survivors are dancing in pairs, close like there's no tomorrow. And hell, yeah, they'll take the holiday.

Next boat won't come before February, most likely from Port Elizabeth. Daisy looks at Brennan like she doesn't want to ditch, but if she and her Lance-a-lot must live in exile anywhere, South Africa doesn't sound too bad. Wendell and his mom think so too.

And they dance that night. Angela and Jack, Goodman and Mrs. Bray, Sweets and Daisy, Drew and Becca, Parker and the girls, Parker and Michelle, Parker and Cam, Cam and Wendell, Cam and Booth, Wendell and Brennan, Brennan and Booth. They toast to the future ("what's left of it," they even joke). They eat some passable pumpkin pie facsimile.

They may never again be all of them together.

Booth shakes Sweets's hand when they depart for Savannah, with a look that says _protect them with your own life_. The one he gives Wendell says something like _proud of you, son_.

When Daisy hugs her close goodbye, Brennan simply says: "Please write me an e-mail as soon as you find a computer."

They'll enter Georgia on Day 123.

*

 

They traverse South Carolina along Route 17 and make their first stop in another ghost town called Jericho. Vincent thinks he's seen that TV show some years ago. Not nearly as bleak as reality, to be quite honest.

They set up camp right outside of town. When Booth, Clark and Hodgins get back with their assigned supplies for the 1730 meet, kids sound like they've been promised something. Cam and Michelle found a candy store; so why the hell shouldn't they make s'mores for everybody tonight?

Most of the group goes to sleep that night with a sliver of lightness in their hearts. The kids do, anyway, and a few of the grown-ups manage to fake it well enough. Clark and Vincent take the first nightwatch shift.

They don't hear it coming, they don't smell it, they're too busy fighting off sleep. When Clark startles fully aware of what he's seeing across the campfire, it's too late for Vincent. The thing is eating through his skull.

"Shit. Shit!" A quick frantic glance behind him can't account for everybody. Clark can't take the shot in the dark. Not when he's shaking like a leaf. Instead he fires his gun in the air, but the beast won't budge, too engrossed in its feast. Clark starts yelling, "Somebody help! Take the kids and run! Everybody run east of the fire! East of the fire! Now! _Now!_ " He's crying. He's crying and he's not moving and there is blood _everywhere_ now. All over again.

Booth runs up to the massacre scene and blows the thing's brains out at gun point; and he's with Clark in a few quick strides. "Come on, man, don't stay out here."

Clark cries himself to sleep with Angela's and Cam's soothing voices trying to console him, and Booth and Drew take their shift early. They spend most of it digging.

They hold a small service in the morning, everybody says a few words, and then they're on their way again. Gotta keep moving.

There's a Holiday Inn where Route 17 meets Interstate 95, and that's where they decide to stop for the night. Be nice to sleep in actual beds for once, behind locked doors, even if the comfort they bring is a mere illusion. 

They even eat in the dining room and in the middle of their meal, sudden clatter noise in the kitchen gets them all on edge, drawing their weapons. _"Jesus Christ, you scared me. Could you be more clumsy?"_ The distant voice was definitely human, at least. 

A revolving door swings open and a girl not much older than Michelle steps into the buffet area, with a guy in that same age-bracket in tow. "Holy shit," seemingly shocked to find other survivors, she runs a hand over her face and addresses her companion. "Actual living people! Oh my God."

The youngsters introduce themselves as Violet and Matt, former Georgia State students. They took trains to Austin, back when the trains were still running, to check on her family. All dead. Walked back to Atlanta, but it has nothing left for them. They've read about the ships online and are headed to Savannah. _How about you guys?_

They talk about their old lives for a handful of minutes, drink a little, and make plans to depart together in the morning. Strength in numbers, and all that. 

They settle on the upper floor. There's not a whole lot of rooms, but nobody minds too much. You live and travel with a dozen people, moments of true intimacy become real scarce. You start missing the very people you walk with; you end up missing the person who matters most. 

Without a word needing to be said, they leave the doubles to the couples. Parker gets to room with his dad. Brennan slips into Booth's twin-bed later and they just hold each other close, steady. "Shhh," he whispers into her hair. "We'll make it. Soon."

"I don't know how to sleep alone anymore."

"I'm right here." 

They hold onto each other, for dear life.

In the wee hours of morning, a shot rings out. Clark. Hodgins finds the body, still warm, pounds it in the chest until he can't feel his own fists anymore. _No. Why. No._

They all leave within the hour, and only stop five hours later for breakfast and supplies in Mitchellville. Exhausted, they finally enter the Port of Savannah in the middle of the night, and truth be told, most of them right now would embark on the first boat out of this misery, to anywhere.

*

 

Savannah turns out to be something else, with a little over two thousand people in the terminals. It's a bonafide micro-society, which part of Brennan remains thrilled to observe. Then again, they have all been trying to find silver linings for far too long.

The people here have managed to keep a few motorized vehicles running, now down to 2. Their one rule is, don't drive any further than you can walk back. The collective supplies are remarkably well-stocked; they've got food, they've got water, they've got clean fucking sheets and blankets for everybody.

And they've got a ship coming in the next morning. It's one of just three more until God knows when. (Carries up to 600 maximum, but all in all they'll cram in 633 people.)

Booth doesn't tell Rebecca _just see where the other ships'll go_ or _you know there's two more on their way_. He says, "So Portugal, huh?"

And she says, "Seel. Just come with." She says it with a sad look on her face and a resigned tone in her voice, like she already knows. They could fight about it, but honestly, what's the point?

He spends that last night with Parker talking at him and watching him play and attempting to answer a thousand why's, for now and for tomorrow. He keeps him up way too late, but hell, it's a pretty damn long and boring crossing, Booth figures his son can sleep the day away.

It's funny, in modern times you tend to think of 'women and children first' as this irrelevant, old-fashioned formula for false courage. Well, maybe it is no more than that in the absolute, but when enough people believe in it, it becomes law. In the Savannah port terminals on this morning, families with children are tacitly given priority of boarding. No one would think to take it away.

Just before they embark, Parker asks when he will see his dad again. And around the sudden lump in his throat, Booth lies because he doesn't know what else to say. "I'll see you real soon, bub. I'll find you, okay?"

And Parker believes his dad because he knows no other way, but that's okay: in a couple of hours he'll be running around the ship after the girls, driving Goodman and Drew and Becca almost completely crazy.

This night, Booth spends drinking with Hodgins and Matt. The kid may or may not still be underage, but frankly, it's not as if they fucking care. It's been a tough day.

Back on their patch of carpet, Angela says: "You know why he stayed, right?"

Brennan also knows the next boat will be sailing to Bordeaux. She thinks if sometime in the near or distant future she can visit some French vineyeards along the Bay of Biscay with her friends, that's something she will look forward to. "Yeah, Ange," she says. She knows.

Later, when Booth is fast asleep, she lays down at his side and slips her hand in his. Then she pulls the cover over them and rests her head on his shoulder.

*

 

The ship to La Rochelle (not Bordeaux after all, though close enough) brings with it a delegation from various US embassies in Europe, of delusional volunteers mostly. They bear news of a 'Rebirth of America Act,' and thousands of paper forms for all departing survivors to fill out. 'Petition for Priority Re-Entry After Securement of Motherland,' they call it. They take pictures and fingerprints and everything. This boat doesn't leave for a couple more days. 

In the meantime, there's a ship to Casablanca. Violet and Matt board it with no hesitation and hardly a goodbye; they're that young and in love and impossibly - _impossibly_ \- into classic movies still. Good for them. For a minute, Cam looks at Michelle with the question, the offer, the future unspoken between them. But Michelle looks from Camille to Booth in the distance and back at Cam again, and discreetly shakes her head no, _not yet_.

Booth and Brennan take a walk that next afternoon. His legs are getting numb, he says. They walk to the marina, to the end of a pier and they stop for a while. All of the yachts and sailboats are gone. It would almost be funny, if the majority of them weren't so likely to wind up sunk or worse. There are other people there, all watching the horizon and marvelling at the ocean liners coming and going. Booth and Brennan stand there watching, too, in the pensive brand of silence usually reserved for prayer, until the wind picks up. It's not particularly strong, but it's _cold_ as it hits Booth's whole torso for the first time. A shiver runs through his spine and he holds Brennan's hand tighter. "We should get going." 

Hodgins and Angela are only with their friends on borrowed time anymore, which they spend almost entirely pretending like they'll just see each other next week or so. Probably because if they don't, they'll never go. On their last night, they hug Cam and Michelle and Brennan and even Booth for a little too long, and no one left has the heart to act shocked when they're gone in the morning.

Then the terminal's population is down to less than a hundred, of which 56 will be staying through the winter. The rest spend the day, Day 129, gathering some supplies for the road. And that night on those far-away shores, well-meaning news anchors will call the rescue of Savannah a success.

It's different walking with a crowd. Slower. Each break has to be a long break. And this constant noise, just footsteps and fabric and the occasional twig breaking, but above all the senseless small-talk. It could probably kill lesser people, Cam muses, or at the very least drive them psychopathic. It makes the road seem so much longer. Their every muscle aches.

But they keep on walking.

Booth could swear he feels some loose curls tickling the back of his neck still, sharp phantom tugs at his shirt, limp little feet bumping his thighs and knees. And especially around nightfall, soft snores in his ear. 

Right outside of Midway, Georgia, a half-dozen degenerates stumble into the group. Shot down within seconds, but a sizeable scare nonetheless. Every one picks up the pace, all the way to South Newport. By now, Booth figures, Parker must be halfway to Bermuda. _Dad, your face is too scratchy._ Away from this. He's glad for that. 

The official plan for the next day is to walk down to Dock Junction, but a handful of people choose to stay a half-day behind in a town called Darien. They split up to pick up supplies and reconvene at the local spa, the irony not lost on anyone. After he checks the building for the second time, Booth enters a bathroom, with towel and razor in hand.

He comes out with a few cuts on his face and neck, but for an instant Brennan sees her partner in crime-solving and it feels like none of this tragic absurdity is real. Like none of it should count. She grabs some gauze and tape she picked up at the pharmacy, and drags him back into the bathroom. 

He never takes his eyes off her as she tends to his cuts, and when she's done, he catches her hand before she can take it too far away, and he tells her he loves her. He speaks the words like solid fact, and at this point, to deny her own feelings would be trivial; foolish; illogical. 

"I feel the same," she says, and soon her hand is tangled in his hair.


End file.
